Cake or Gum? 1976 Lee May

Last time gum won, 5-2. Gum May win here, or it May not.

Hostess goes for a spring training shot, with a bit of an awkward batting pose. Topps captured May before a game at Oakland Coliseum. There appears to be some fraternizing with the enemy going on in the background, with some players in Orioles caps talking to someone in an A's cap.

Underrated in his time and somewhat forgotten today, Lee May was a very productive slugging first baseman with 11 straight seasons of 20+ HR. May was one of the stars of the early Big Red Machine, with 111 HR over three seasons ('69-'71), helping them win the 1970 NL pennant. However, the Reds decided to go with Tony Perez as their first baseman and traded May to the Astros for Joe Morgan. That trade worked so well for Cincinnati that it's easy to forget that May was excellent for Houston, hitting 81 HR over three years in one of the toughest hitting parks in the majors. The Astros then traded him to the Orioles, and he continued to hit well there. In 1977 rookie Eddie Murray took over as first baseman, relegating May to DH. He ended his career with two years with the Royals. Overall in 2,071 games over 18 seasons, May hit .267 with 354 HR and 1,244 RBI. After his playing career he was a minor league coach for several seasons. He died in 2017.

Hard to Judge this team

The Yankees have won five out of six now this postseason, despite not looking very good at times, including some blunders last night. They are now two wins away - no small hurdle - from their second pennant in the past 21 seasons, and first in fifteen seasons. This team doesn't seem anywhere near as strong or balanced as the Torre-era Yankees, even a team like 2004 that was at this spot and fumbled the pennant away. However, perhaps that is more the nature of baseball in 2024, as there is less of a focus on complete skills and just a laser focus on two skills - velocity (pitchers) and exit velocity (hitters). I think that is why there really aren't "great" teams anymore. Just a few great players on the best teams, and filler the rest of the roster.

It's doubtful that Gerrit Cole could have made the 1998 Yankees rotation, but he's their "ace" with a decent 4.2 inning outing. One aspect of this team that is kind of like 1996, is relievers who were a liability during the season becoming suddenly unhittable in October. (Then, David Weathers and Graeme Lloyd, now Clay Holmes and maybe Tim Hill.) On offense they've been carried by Stanton, Soto and Torres. 

Of course, the big news is Judge finally homering. For all the talk of his struggles, he only looked really bad in the first two games of the KC series. Since then he's been making good contact and taking his walks. If he can get on a roll this team will be in a much better shape to finish off Cleveland and be competitive in the World Series. Especially considering that they are going on the road with rookie starters the next two games.

Wild win

Nice to see the Yankees get a pair of longballs and a nice six-inning performance from Carlos Rodon. Rodon sometimes seems like he'd be better off as a reliever, as he usually starts the game very strong then falters in the middle innings. Perhaps it's really as simple as controlling his emotions.

Of course, the Yankees probably don't win the game without Joey Cantillo's wildness, and that Bo Naylor kept trying to block the ball with his glove rather than his body. Yankees will continue to need breaks like this, as the offense is not clicking on all gears and the middle relief (like Tim Hill) is shaky.

Wood vs. Wood #221

Last time 1987 rolled to a 10-1 victory. Will this one be closer?

In 1961 Topps would take a photo of a player hatless in case they changed teams. Such was the case with Bill Short. Despite the pinstripes and Yankee Stadium background, Topps wants you to think Orioles. A hard thrower who struggled with control, Short came up with the Yankees in 1960, spent all of 1961 in the minors, and was a Rule 5 selection by Baltimore. He pitched in just 5 games in 1962, and spent the next three years in the minors before returning to Baltimore for 6 games in 1966. He was then sold to the Red Sox for whom he pitched in 8 more games. The journeyman then pitched in 6 games for the '67 Pirates, 34 games for the '68 Mets, and 4 games for the '69 Reds before retiring. Overall in 73 major league games he went 5-11 with a 4.73 ERA. After his retirement he was a coach in the Pirates organization. He died in 2022.

By 1987 Topps had ditched the hatless photo and instead used airbrushing when a player changed teams. Such was the case with Vern Ruhle, who signed with the Angels in February of 1986, but Topps apparently never got a photo of him with California, instead airbrushing an older photo of Ruhle. Ruhle was a back-of-the rotation starter for the Tigers and Astros in the late '70s and early '80s. His best season by far was 1980, when he went 12-4 with a 2.37 ERA for the Astros. In 1983 he switched to long relieving. He ended his career with stints in Cleveland in 1985 and the Angels in 1986. Overall in 327 games he went 67-88 with a 3.73 ERA. After his playing career he was a pitching coach for several teams. He died in 2007.

1963 Pepsi Tulsa Oilers

I love vintage baseball cars, but I also have a soft stuff for vintage Pepsi merchandise. For some reason I just really like the logo. I've been aware of these for awhile, and was lucky to find a lot of these for a good price. At eight cards (four two-card panels), these represent a third of the set.

These are "door hangers" but the door hanger is not perforated and I hate to unperforate it to stick it on a door, so I am just leaving these intact in my little Pepsi display. As you can see the Oilers were a Cardinals affiliate. Harry Watts never made the majors but Dennis Aust had a brief stint with the Cardinals and got on a Topps card.

Even though the Pepsi logo is blue, it's black on these as it looks like they were just printed in black and red ink. Not sure what uniform Lamar Drummonds is wearing. He didn't make the major leagues but Chuck Taylor did for several years.

Coach Pepper Martin was a legendary member of the Gas House Gang.  Gary Kolb had a brief major league tenure.

Jerry Wild is another guy who didn't make it to the majors. At 7.0 BB/9 in five AAA seasons, I guess he was a little too . . . wild. And finally a batboy! 12-year-old Jon Smith of Tulsa.

Here's what the backs look like. Save your cards and caps and match them to win $24. Hey that's $246 in 2024 dollars. Or maybe a better deal, ten cards get you free admission to an Oilers game.

1953 Bowman Color

I picked up a lot of these for a dollar each. 30 for $30. Pretty hard to get these for a quarter each and they are beautiful cards. I wish they had the names on the front - I'm not going to pretend I can recognize most of these by face alone. Still the photography is really fantastic and I enjoy looking at them. (And if you haven't seen it yet, the Adventures of a Baseball Card Collector blog just did a terrific post with a lot of research revealing that this is the most error-filled set of all time.)

The first one here, Red Schoendienst, is off to the side because it's the only one I had already. It's available for trade, there's tape on the front but it's better than my other one which has paper loss. Also my first Joe Garagiola card, those are hard to come by. Great shot of Yankees star Allie Reynolds too.

Charlie Grimm and Joe Nuxhall's cards both show nice views through the Polo Grounds grandstands to the apartment buildings behind. Grimm's card also notes that he is a noted teller of "German dialect stories".

Johnny Lipon is fielding a ball with a blue stamp on it. The purple sky on Cass Michaels's card is interesting. I don't know if that's a print defect or a cool sunset. I did not realize when I bought this lot that most of the cards were from the somewhat-tougher high numbers. These last three photos are all from that part of the set.

There's Tigers star Johnny Pesky posing at Yankee Stadium. My first Pesky card too. I think he might have played for another team in addition to Detroit. Larry Miggins's card has some of the same pink sky as Cass Michaels.

It wasn't intentional on my part but there's a lot of blue sky with clouds here. Some paper loss even adds to the cloudy effect. From whatever angle though, these close-up glimpses of early '50's ballplayers are really nice to add to my collection.

Nice win

Nice to see a total team effort by the Yankees last night. Not a lot of offense, but enough to squeak by. Even Aaron Judge contributed. Hopefully he has shaken the Arod-itis. The pitching continued to be very good. Gerrit Cole was phenomenal, and the back of the bullpen (Holmes and Weaver) continue to be hot.

However the next round with the longer series will be much tougher. In this series Cole pitched 33% of the Yankees innings; Cole and Holmes combined were one inning short of 50%. This time there will need to be a total team effort, not just relying on a couple of arms to boast a 3-runs-a-game offense. Cleveland's been the most consistent team in the AL all year, and Detroit is the hottest team in baseball, so either way the competition is going to be much stiffer.

(And if they somehow do win their first pennant in 15 years, I sure couldn't handle another Subway Series, so will be rooting hard for the California team in the NLCS!)

Praiseworthy bullpen

As usual, the Yankees got very little out of their lineup outside of Stanton and Soto. Clarke Schmidt was pretty good but ran out of gas in the fifth inning. The big surprise was how well the Yankees bullpen pitched, 4.1 innings of 2-hit shutout ball. Hopefully the Yankees are starting to straighten out what was a big weakness for much of the past few months. These three really did nicely last night.

The real test of this bullpen will come if they have an extra inning game. The Yankees have really struggled in those this year, though the offense deserves a lot of the blame for that.

1974 Topps Deckle Dating: Greg Luzinski

Greg Luzinski.

Back when Shea Stadium was empty behind the outfield fence. Supposedly April 7, 1973.

Luzinski was 0-for-3 with a walk on this day. He was intentionally walked with a runner on second and one out in the top of the ninth of a 2-2 game. The strategy worked as Jon Matlack retired Jose Pagan and Bob Boone, and in the bottom of the ninth the Mets won it on a walkoff single by Willie Mays.

The only other card that might have a photo from the same time is his '75 Topps, which is also a Shea Stadium photo, and he appears to be standing in more or less the same spot. However, the left side of home plate at Shea Stadium seems to have been the most popular place for Topps to take player photos, so it could well have been taken another time.

In other news, President Nixon announced new import fees on gas and oil, the first rugby world cup was held, and astronomers at the OSU Radio Observatory announced the discovery of quasar OH471, the most distant observed object in the universe, which they dubbed "the blaze marking the edge of the universe".

Blogger/TCDB/OBC roundup

Washing away the sting of the Yankees playing exactly as I thought they would, with some of the nice cards that have come in lately.

Vintage trades with other bloggers don't come around very often, but I was able to do one with Cards as I See Them, getting these very nice cards, including Hall of Famer Luke Appling as a Tigers coach. I really like the 1960 Billy Jurges cards. I wish Topps went with that design for the players in that set.

The monthly Diamond Jesters time travel trade is always good for an eclectic mix. No real way to categorize these, other than nice cards to add to my collection!

For years my 1993 Select set was one cards short of completion, missing only the terrific Derek Jeter rookie cards. TCDB's Jbeiermann took care of that in a one-for-one swap for a wrestling relic card.

 

Also TCDB, four minor league cards from nozzlemaster.

On to OBC. Dan Williams managed to fit 49 cards into two PWEs with two forever stamps each. I'm not quite brave enough to try that. Three terrific 1950s cards, very catcher-heavy. Only my second '53 black-and-white. The rest are all 1990 Leaf, mostly commons with one very notable exception, the famous Frank Thomas rookie. That and the Jeter knocked off some pretty big junk-era cards this week.

Ron Hoehne went the oddball route with cake, cereal and pretzels. The Eddie Collins is not a 1972 Kelloggs, but a 1970 Rold Gold (the sets are identical except for the copyright line). I like the Bobby Bonds card where the airbrushed Yankee uniform is missing the pinstripes, and of course airbrushing is pretty much the only way to see a Yankee with a beard.

Cliff Franklin sent this great eight. A Yankee and seven high numbers! Once again a manager card steals the show, that John McNamara photo is great.

Finally, Chris Kodl sent this great six-pack of 1950s cards, highlighted by Dodgers star Don Newcombe.